


"Count Me In"

by if_he_had_to_guess



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Angst, Fluff, I didn't intend for it to be multi-chaptered but here we go kiddos, I don't think the self harm is terribly graphic, I'll end up updating the tags as the fic goes, M/M, Self Harm, at least not in chapter one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-09 06:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12270405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/if_he_had_to_guess/pseuds/if_he_had_to_guess
Summary: A soulmate AU in which any scar that appears on your soulmate, self-inflicted or not, appears on you, as well.





	1. The First Cuts

The first time a cut had appeared on Eddie's arm, he was 13-years-old and sitting at the kitchen table after dinner with his mom.

He'd been about to take his final pill of the night when, suddenly, he felt a burning, itching sensation on his left wrist. When he set his pill down to scratch at it briefly, he'd looked down and seen four unsteady, thin lines of angry red drawn across his skin, and paled, immediately turning his wrist over where it lay.

This would've been normal, had it not been for the clean precision and location of the lines; clearly self-harm.

Eddie had been experiencing this his whole life; any time his soulmate scraped their knee, so did he; any time his soulmate busted their lip, so did he. Every single scar and bruise his soulmate got, he got it, too.

And as his scarred wrist itched on and on, he felt overwhelming worry flood his head and his heart. His soulmate was self-harming.

 

* * *

 

Eddie bawls his eyes out the morning that he wakes up to the staggering amount of  _fourteen_ cuts on his wrist, and, by extension, his soulmate's wrist. The number, before that morning, had never even passed  _seven_.

And, to make things worse, when Eddie approaches the other Losers before school that day, Richie, his best friend and long-time crush, is not among them. His stomach hits the ground as he looks at Beverly, his eyes rimmed with red.

"Can I talk to you?"

 

* * *

 

It's surprisingly easy for Beverly to convince Eddie to skip at least first period that day. She instinctively reaches for the pack of cigarettes in her pocket as she starts to walk down the sidewalk outside of school with Eddie, but remembering his "asthma", she instead settles on hooking her thumbs into her pockets.

"Eddie, what's wrong?" Bev's voice is soft but strong, a surprisingly comfortable rock. Eddie appreciates it.

Eddie doesn't usually open up to Bev; he's much closer to Bill and Stan, but Bev's close to Richie, right next to Eddie himself in ranking. Out of all the Losers, though, when things went really wrong, Eddie felt safe with Bev and Richie most.

"Bev, my..." he hesitates, takes a breath. "My soulmate's self, self-harming."

He feels the cold October breeze blow through his fluffy, brown hair, making the tears in his eyes sting more. Warmth spreads through his face. His nose runs just a little.

Bev is silent for a moment, a moment that seems to drag on for ages, before suddenly, she gently grabs Eddie's hand, leading him toward the quarry. She doesn't lace their fingers together the way that Richie does. Somewhere in himself, Eddie feels the relief run through his blood at this.

As soon as they're under the cover of the large trees and brush that conceals the pathway to the quarry, Bev turns to him and asks quietly, "which wrist?"

"Left," he answers, almost like clockwork.

Bev's greyish-blue eyes stay on the path ahead of them as she seems to almost be lost in thought, before she nods solemnly.

Eddie swallows hard.

The hypochondriac wants to ask Bev why they're going to the quarry, but he fears that if he opens his mouth, he'll start choking on his sobs again. Instead, he sniffs, a product of both the autumn chill and his crying, looking around at the tall trees, taking in the way that the leaves on the ground are dead brown and vibrant orange and yellow; two brilliantly bright shades that Eddie knows Richie loves. He absentmindedly hopes that his best friend is okay, wherever he is right now.

 

* * *

 

Richie sits on a big rock by the quarry, staring out over the water. His eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, his poor lower lip worried halfway to Hell; he's sure his soulmate will be feeling that when it busts later. The thought merely causes fresh tears to spring to his eyes, and he quickly shakes his head, discarding the thought.

His dark curls fall to frame his cheekbones and he sighs, the light blue bandages that are wrapped around his left wrist peeking out from beneath his orange sweater. Eddie had bought both items for his birthday the year before. His eyebrows furrow.

He hadn't slept at all the night before, awake for hours to the broken symphony of breaking bottles and, " _you're cheating, you whore_!"

He'd held onto the phone, clung to it, as hot, fresh tears streamed down his face, Eddie's number already dialed into the phone. He wanted absolutely nothing more, in those hours, than to hear the hypochondriac's voice, to hear him say, " _the window's always unlocked, jackass, please come here_ ".

But, no matter how hard he willed himself to just hit the call button, to get the courage to call his best friend and long-time crush, he simply couldn't do it. His throat would almost seem to close, to fill with bile and overdue milk. He abandoned the thought of calling his Eds altogether.

Instead, he'd forced his aching, wobbly limbs to lift him off of the edge of his bed. His back popped in several places, his mouth seemingly full of cotton, and he grimaced at the disgusting taste. Deep green glass glinted in the dim light of his bedroom lamp, one of his mom's broken beer bottles.

He made sure to be quiet, silent as he stepped over to the disaster on his bedroom floor, the boards giving soft groans of protest beneath the weight of his body. He closed his door with a soft  _click_ , knelt down, and took hold of the most sizable piece of glass his hands could reach.

Not even twenty minutes later, he found himself on the phone, sobbing to Bev on the other end.


	2. Who is He?

 Bev stops just before the pathways ending, grabbing Eddie's shoulders and positioning him to stand behind one of the large trees. She puts a finger to her lips, and he nods slowly.

 She returns the nod with a small, reassuring smile, turning on her heel and entering the clearing to the quarry. She makes her presence known by making as much noise as she can while she walks, her footsteps loud on the rocks.

 Richie's not hard to spot, and, judging by the way Richie doesn't shift or tense whenever she approaches him, he knows it's her.

"Hey, Richie..." she says quietly, sitting down beside him. She doesn't look at him, though; not yet.

 Bev had already been here today, roughly an hour and a half before, at six in the morning. Richie had been cradled in her arms, the girl smoothing down his unruly, unbrushed curls, little streams of red blood like a sore thumb against the pretty pale skin of his wrist and his fingers. Looking down at the pale blue bandage wrapped around his thin wrist now, Bev remembers wrapping it to the sound of Richie's hiccups.

  They had hardly spoken, even their phone conversation mostly consisting of, "Bev, you gotta come to the quarry, now,  _please_ ," and Richie's incoherent sobs. Bev had needed no more explanation than that.

  However, after Richie's tears had ceased, and his injuries were wrapped, Bev had offered to stay with him. Much to her surprise, he had declined, a cigarette between his lips.

"Please, Bev," he had whispered. "Go make sure Eddie's okay at school today, okay?"

 She had nodded slowly then, too, giving him a promise in the form of a softly mumbled " _okay_ " and a light pat on the shoulder.

 Now, though, he looked a little calmer, his deep brown eyes reflecting the blue water.

"Hey..." he sighs the word out more than says it, then his eyebrows furrow and he turns to look at Bev through his coke-bottle lenses. "Why'd you come back? Where's Eddie?"

"Rich..." she says again, and somehow, it's even impossibly softer than the first time. She could hear the anxiety bubbling in Richie's voice. "You and I...we kinda need to talk."

* * *

 Fear had welled in the pit of Richie's very soul the second he'd heard Bev approach. He'd thought he'd heard two sets of footsteps in the dead leaves on the forest floor, but maybe he'd just been hearing things.

 He thoughtlessly pulled his cigarette pack from his pocket, pulling a cigarette out and putting it between his shaking fingers. He mumbled a " _thank you_ " to Bev as she lit it, taking a drag before looking over at his redheaded best friend.

"What do we need to talk about?"

"It's about your soulmate."

His throat closes and he pales significantly, but he nods, doing his best to keep breathing through the anxiety and cigarette smoke.

 The trashmouth, usually so full of snark and mirth, is silent for the second time that day.

"I found your soulmate this morning, Rich...he's real beat up about this," Bev gently brushes her fingertips against the powder blue bandages.

 Richie thinks he might be sick.

"He's been crying since last night," her voice is small, but she continues on. "he wants to see you. I know he does."

"Where is he?" Richie's voice cracks, unable to contain himself anymore. His cold hand desperately grabs Beverly's, maybe a bit too tight. She winces. "Where the hell is he?  _Who_ the hell is he?"

"Richie, I think you know exactly who he is."

* * *

 

Eddie hears Richie's voice, somewhat frantic ( _where is he? Who is he?_ ) and suddenly, he  _knows._ Jesus  _fuck_ , he knows. He wants to throw himself into the clearing, he wants to yell, " _I'm right here, trashmouth, god damnit_ ", he wants to sob and laugh with joy. Damn it all, he wants to kiss Richie's stupid face, he wants to hold him and laugh but all he can do it stay rooted where he stands, his eyes impossibly wide.

He understands now. He understands why Richie's not at school, why they're at the quarry. He knows now that the roll of blue bandages isn't getting smaller from  _bike wipeouts_ like Richie's been saying and he chokes out a sob.

 " _B-Bev!_ " he calls. " _Richie!_ "

Immediately, he hears frenzied shuffling, rocks being displaced, and Bev calling, " _Richie, wait!_ " The next thing Eddie knows is that all he can see are black unruly curls and dark brown eyes and freckled cheeks, a vibrant orange sweater. There are arms wrapped tight around his shoulders, a hand in his soft hair. He feels the bones beneath Richie's sweater, beneath his  _skin_ , as he hugs him to his body as tight as he can, a string of " _I'm so sorry_ "s and " _God, Eds, if I had known_ "s. Eddie can only bawl, his voice only strong enough to say " _you fucking jackass_ ", absolutely no bite behind his words.

They're like that until Eddie can breathe again, and as soon as Richie's eyes are in his view again, Eddie's grabbing his face, on his toes, lips pressed to Richie's. He tastes and smells like cigarettes and, very vaguely, cheap alcohol, but Eddie can't find it in himself to care right now.

Richie immediately hugs Eddie's waist, the kiss an absolute mess, but there's love and relief and youth in the way they fit together. Their foreheads are pressed together the second their lips aren't, Richie's thumbs gently brushing at Eddie's tears.

 "Richie, I..." Eddie starts, but his mouth merely hangs open, his mind swimming for words. "I'm so sorry I didn't--that I didn't see it sooner." He's surprised at the small smile Richie offers him, but he knows it doesn't reach his eyes.

 "It's okay, Eds."The lankier boy reaches up, a blue-clad wrist before Eddie's eyes as the hair is brushed away from his forehead.

 "But--" he tries to start again, but this time he's cut off by Richie's thumb gently smoothing over the corner of his lips, another kiss, smaller and softer than the last, and Eddie understands the gentle, silent plea.

  _Later please?_


	3. Bound to Lose

Eddie gets a call from Richie a month before his 16th birthday that ends with both of them in tears.

Richie's sobbing his sweet heart out when Eddie picks up, and Eddie's heart immediately climbs into his throat. Richie's crying out words, but Eddie can't make out any of them.

"Rich, Richie--" Eddie desperately says into the phone, standing up off of his bed. "What the hell's wrong?"

Eddie hears Richie pull in a shaky breath and exhale a sob, before going dead silent.

"Eddie, baby, I--" Richie pauses as there's the sound of footsteps stomping up the stairs. "Eddie, your mom's not home, right?"

"N-No, she's not gonna be home for hours," he frowns, knitting his eyebrows. "Why? Richie, what the hell is--?"

Eddie's cut off by the sound of door slamming open on Richie's end, a door he quickly realizes is to Richie's bedroom, and a slurred voice spitting, "who the hell are you talking to? You're not talking to that faggot, are you?"

Eddie's blood runs cold, and suddenly, as Richie's trying to protest to his mother, there's a sound of shattering glass and Eddie feels a sting on his forehead, just beneath his hairline. With a yelp, Eddie drops the phone, and he knows Richie did, too, he can hear muffled screaming and yelling. 

Eddie scrambles to grab the phone, listening to the sounds of a struggle. He catches sight of himself in the mirror on his vanity, catches sight of the cut on his forehead; he knows that Richie has a twin one.

Very suddenly, before he can even begin to move to his door, before he can rush to meet Richie, he hears a loud  _bang_. It's not like a gun, more like a body meeting hardwood. And just like that, Eddie feels a rain of stings in his back.

* * *

 

The air is knocked from Richie's lungs before the scream comes out. Tears prick at his eyes.

Richie's mom had knocked him straight in the temple, colors flashing before his eyes, and now he was laying flat on his back in a pile full of sea green glass. He can feel dots of blood soaking the back of his shirt, but all he can think is, " _Eddie, Eddie, Eddie_ ".

He knows Eddie's feeling this, too. God,  _fuck_ , he knows.

His mother is towering over him, and his heart is beating fast when his mom spits on him. 

"Fucking queer."

Richie can feel the tears sliding down the sides of his face and soaking into his hair. Even after his mom leaves the room, he stays there on the floor, rolling onto his side with a grunt, and all he knows is that he needs to be with Eddie  _now_.

* * *

 

Getting out the window was a real pain in the ass. He'd nearly fallen trying to drop into the dead bushes beneath his bedroom, and by the time his feet finally made contact with the ground, he was already exhausted. Every move was painful, every move pulled on the cuts in his back. Even though he knew the injuries weren't fatal, the feeling of blood sticking his shirt to his skin and running down his back in rivulets had anxiety running thick in Richie's veins.

It was nearly 8PM ( _when had Eddie said his mom would be home? Three hours? Had he even said at all?_ ), and Richie was staggering down the sidewalk, his black jacket thrown on so messily that he didn't even realize he'd put it on inside out.

Even though he should be happy that he was out of that hell-hole for a night or two (" _soon to be in Eddie's arms_ ", his brain helpfully supplied), he couldn't stop the tears that welled in his eyes as he rounded the corner and ran straight into his doe-eyed boyfriend.

* * *

 

The second Eddie saw Richie, beneath a lamppost in the fading daylight, he'd have sworn to God he was seeing death for the millionth time in his life.

A single stream of blood had trickled down the side of his face from his temple, his lip cracked from how much he must've worried it on his way here. Tears were welled in his dark, magnified brown eyes; his left lens was cracked.

Eddie sucks in a shaky breath and purses his lips, grabbing Richie's hand. He begins to lead his boyfriend toward his home, Richie leaning his shoulder against Eddie's heavily, the hypochondriac hearing soft sniffles coming from the taller boy. There's little droplets of rain hitting their bodies, and there's still a chill in the air from January. Eddie keeps the walk to his house as quick as he can, taking his boyfriend through the front door, silently thanking God that his mom wasn't going to be home any time soon. He gulps when he sees just a few small blood droplets on the hardwood floor of the kitchen.

He grabs a bottle of what he knows are pain-killers, and, even though Richie protests at first, he helps him up the stairs, toward his bedroom. He snags a towel (fluffy, dark brown) from his bathroom.

Richie eases himself down onto Eddie's bed with a soft grunt when they enter the room, and Eddie knows he's watching as he bumbles around, in and out of the room. He swallows hard; his throat is dry.

When Eddie finally does return to the room for the final time, he's got medical gauze, rubbing alcohol; when Richie's eyes land on the bottle, he grimaces, and Eddie offers him an apologetic smile as he sits down beside him. Gently, pushing on Richie's shoulder, he turns the boy so that he has access to his back, watching as he removes his jacket. His fingers are shaking as he peels Richie's shirt itself off of his skin and up to his shoulders, his breath audibly catching as he takes in the sight before him.

Richie's back is absolutely littered in blood. It's everywhere, it's all over the pale skin of his back. A line of it runs just along the jutting ridges of his spine, and once again, Eddie swallows down the bile in his throat.

"It can't be that bad, Eds," he hears Richie say, and Eddie can hear the weak suggestion of a smile in his voice.

"Beep beep," he mumbles, grabbing the tweezers with a grim look on his face. "Rich, this is gonna hurt."

Eddie waits a moment for Richie to nod, and when he finally does, he leans forward and presses a soft kiss on the back of Richie's neck.

The silence stretches in the air between them, save for the occasional grunt or whimper from Richie, followed, each time, by a soft " _sorry_ " from Eddie.

Eddie can almost see the way the weights hang on Richie's shoulders, his heart sinking further and further as he thinks more and more about Richie's mother. Just as Eddie's opening his mouth to say something, Richie's voice reaches his ears. He's pressing a towel to Richie's cuts, now.

"Eds, I..." Richie's voice is soft, and Eddie can't bring himself to chastise him for the nickname this time; Richie's so rarely soft like this.

"What is it, Rich...?"

Eddie hears another sniffle, and he frowns; he could feel a sudden tension in the air that wasn't there before. He gently grabs Richie's hand, who gives him a tight squeeze back, staring with glassy eyes at Eddie's blanket.

"Eddie, I, I...for the past week, I-I've been..." he swallows thickly. "Eds, I-I don't wanna go on a-anymore."

It's then that he turns to look at Eddie, his eyes big behind his coke bottle lenses and dark brown, and the air rushes out of Eddie's lungs. His nose starts to get warm; he knows it's turning red.

* * *

 

Richie sniffles, and suddenly his lip is quivering, his throat closing up. He's looking down at Eddie, with his big light brown eyes and his soft hair falling across his forehead. The look on Eddie's face screams disbelief, but Richie had to say it,  _fuck_ , he had to.

The thought of death, of his own mortality, had absolutely festered in his head and heart for nearly a week--a part of him was broken, snapped in half, only mended temporarily by heavy duty duct tape and cheap glue whenever he was with Eddie. But it didn't go away.

He'd go home in the afternoons, he'd walk into his house to the instant smell of alcohol and cigarettes. He almost found himself ashamed to be used to the smell of the "little cancer sticks", as Eddie called them. He was doing his best to stop for his asthmatic soulmate, but it was hard.

He'd walk through his door, almost sneak, but he'd know he couldn't hide. Especially when his dad's not home, which is so often that Richie's almost used to it. Almost.

The tall trashmouth was silent as soon as he got home and heard garbage moving around and bottles breaking as his mom got out of bed to come down and meet him. To most kids, their parents coming to see them after school would be exciting. For Richie, it was terrifying.

He hoped to God, wherever the fuck that sick bastard was, that he never got used to this. That he never became numb to how his mom acted. He didn't want to be immune to the sound of smashing bottles and his mother's scratchy voice as she screamed and his own squeaky voice as he screamed back. If he grew numb to it...he didn't want to know what kind of man he'd become.

* * *

 

Eddie was slow to gather himself, but when he did, he pursed his lips and knit his eyebrows. His thumb rubbed circles against Richie's knuckles; he didn't have to ask why his boyfriend felt suicidal. He knew.

"Rich..." he started slowly, carefully choosing his words. "You can always come to me if you feel like that, okay? You can call me, come over--whether I'm awake or it's 3AM and I'm asleep, just come here. I'll leave the window unlocked, all the time."

He watched as Richie visibly relaxed. His shoulders sagged, a small sigh of relief escaping his lips. Eddie gently squeezed Richie's hand, offering a smile to his teary-eyed boyfriend. 

The hypochondriac went back to patching up the cuts on his back, eventually coming to the point where he had no idea if he should wrap Richie's entire chest in gauze or put little bandaids over the individual cuts. Grimacing, he grabbed his fanny pack, pulling out at least 20 plain bandaids; the gauze would be too dangerous.

By the time Eddie is finished, Richie is sitting up straight, shifting his hips and flexing the muscles in his back in discomfort. Eddie couldn't help but watch; Rich isn't terribly muscular, but he's got more muscle now than he did three years ago.

It went unsaid that night that Richie was staying the night, not allowed to go home (not that he even wanted to). While Eddie got up to change into his bed clothes, just a pair of shorts and one of the many oversized sweatshirts he'd stolen from Richie over the years, Richie tried finding a way to get comfortable, so used to sleeping on his side. Thanks to the cuts, he ended up laying on his stomach closest to the wall, his cheek smushed against the pillow, Eddie taking his place next to him. He stared at his boyfriend quietly for a moment before reaching over and grabbing his glasses, pulling them off of his face and setting them on the bedside table. When he turns back, he gently reaches out and rubs Richie's cheek with his thumb, leaning in and pressing a soft, lasting kiss to his lips. 

He's immeasurably thankful for the warmth of Richie beside him as he lays in bed that night, curled up on his side, the silence between them once again comfortable.

"When do you think your mom'll be home, Eds? I was hoping I'd get in a kiss before bed--"

"Oh, beep  _fucking_ beep, Richie."

**Author's Note:**

> Aye, go follow me on tumblr @ eddie-loverboy-kaspbrak


End file.
